September 15, 2007

Friday Night Movies 126

Each week there are more choices tossed into the ring and some bold bastard fights it's way to the top of the heap and we watch that. The process is a carefully guarded secret. Tonight our first bout champion was a BestBuy exclusive dvd set. There are two in the picture above, we had the right hand set,The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Volume Two, and we watched The Land Unknown. I have a fondness for these old Universal International Horror and Science Fiction films, partially from growing up with them, and partially from their being so damn enjoyable. The previous set had The Monolith Monsters in it. Everyone should know that it's one of my favorite movies. The Land Unknown is pretty good and I have watched it several times over the years. It's about an artic expedition, part of which gets stuck at the bottom of a crater where time has stopped. Greg and I agreed we liked lost world stories and so do many people. Can you name some other lost world pictures or books? Dinosaurs fight it out and pterodactyls roam the skies in this 1957 UI near-classic. It could have been a contender but it has some bad effects. The T-Rex is particularly laughable. Here's the cover from a bootleg dvd that shows our boy Rex in a pretty good closeup. His head was the best part.

Believe me, the artist rendering of the T-Rex is much more exciting than the one in the movie. There are some fighting lizards and a lake monster with huge man-killin' flippers. Not that anyone gets killed on this mission. You would have thought, or even expected, the crazy guy who was lost on the previous mission to be killed, but, no. He makes out in better shape than that lake monster who gets a flare shot in his mouth, and that's after having two flaming torches thrust over and over into his mouth. That monster should have stayed in his lake bed today. This new dvd looks great, you can even see the strings in one scene where the little lemur like guy gets eaten by a hostile plant. That wasn't to bad a monster either. The sets and backgrounds were pretty good and ambitious. The story and the character development were pretty fun too. The three guys and a gal are trapped, maybe forever. There's a bit of romance and sexual threat but it's okay in the end.

There's not much romance in Feast, our next feature, but there is monster sex, and that's pretty threatening. Greg picked the dvd up based on some horror magazine review. It made it sound like it might be a fun movie, in the Slither vein. It was. There are a bunch of people who are drinking at a small bar in the middle of nowhere. Some guy comes in and tells them some terrible things are on the way and then he's pulled out a window and eaten. At least he left his gun behind. The movie was part of the Matt Damon/Ben Affleck Project Greenlight series and it's written and directed by John Gulager. His father is the great character actor Clu Galager, who plays the bartender in Feast. Then it's a fight to the death between the monsters and the people, with laughs. The monsters are strong and have big teeth. The people are a mixed bag and some of them get offed right away, like Jason Mewes (Jay of Jay and Silent Bob). Be sure to look for Jason in his new movie Bottoms Up. Jason plays a bartender and co-stars with Paris Hilton. You can see a scene here. Back at Feast more people are eaten and eventually it's all over. I want to get a copy for myself. There is a commentary that might be good. I like the movies sense of humor and hope that John Gulager makes more movies down the road.

We scanned through Blazing Stewardesses looking for nudity. There was hardly any. Don't see this movie, ever! And if you see Al Adamson, give him a kick in the nuts from me. From the IMDB, where the movie gets a well deserved 1.6: First film for the Ritz Brothers comedy duo since 1943. Originally conceived as a comeback film for The Three Stooges, which at this time consisted of Moe Howard, Joe DeRita and newcomer Emil Stika. Howard died before production began, which was when the Ritz Brothers were brought in. Sadly there is a second movie in the dvd box. Naughty Stewardesses. You know that movie has a great potential to disappoint solely based on it's name. The first two movies lived up to their names but not Blazing Stewardesses. Not one of those air hostesses was on fire. In any possible way. They didn't even take their cloths off. You can see an old trailer for both here. Then you'll know you don't need to get that dvd. Saved you some money.